Lea Sorrentino
September 1, 2017.
Lea is a conceptual multi-media artist from Minneapolis, who joined us here at the Fish Factory during August 2017. Through her work she investigates contemporary culture, with one key focus being the impacts of the internet and social media, and the online channels which we have accessible to us; giving us the opportunity to form a persona, and choose how we wish to be perceived. Lea’s work attempts to ‘make visible the necessity for understanding our relationship to consumerism’ and to ‘critically examine American’s perception of success, and how that perception generates delusional expectations’.
When Lea arrived here, to a town of less than 200 people, she was surprised to find our factory concert hall, and interested in the way that a small community still connects to society at large, upholding modern value and expectation. She also realised how important it was for her to arrive and be liked, and of importance within this community. These ideas, along with a recurring reference to reality TV in Lea’s work, inspired a video piece set in the concert hall, hosting a beauty pageant where she would play the second runner up, first runner up, and also winner of the competition.
Lea Sorrentino // Miss Stöðvarfjördur 2017
Lea was greatly interested in taking objects or ideas that exist here in the fjord, and giving them new meaning. Her further projects at the factory focussed on a second video project, creating a playful, fictional narrative and ‘dark side’ to the local attraction of Petra’s Stone Collection, and in collaboration with artist, Dameon Lester, she collected various bones from the shore, in order to create a ‘new’ animal of Stöðvarfjördur.
Lea Sorrentino & Dameon Lester // Fictional Animal
//More of Lea’s Artwork//
Check out the interview about her stay here:
Thank you, Lea!